YouTube removed from Roku

As most of you Roku owners would know, the set top box doesn’t come with an official channel for you to stream YouTube videos on the set top box. However, an unofficial, unlicensed channel was created as a workaround, and it has been used for quite some time now, and the instructions on how to get it even appeared on the official Roku FAQ. However, those days of streaming YouTube through the private channel have come to an end according to a blog post by Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny!

Google has seemed to have caught wind about the situation and has forced them to remove the YouTube channel from their service and now it seems that new users aren’t able to access the channel anymore whereas folks who’ve been using it all this while can still access the YouTube service. The FAQ has even been updated to display:

“At the request of YouTube, this private channel is no longer available on Roku. To remove the channel, please go to “My Channels” in the Channel Store.”

While Roku has mentioned that they’re in the midst of discussions about getting the streaming video service back, there’s no official word of what’s going to happen yet. So for those of you who can still access YouTube on Roku – enjoy it while you can, you might not get the chance to again in the future.